


Contempus Mundi (Scorn the World)

by garnettrees



Category: CLAMP - Works, Chobits, Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Magic and Science, Past Lives, Post-Canon, Science Fiction, Tragic Romance, bad life choices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: "I knew the project had been terminated," Subaru says quietly. "When you came to my room… I thought they had sent you. That you'd come to kill me. I was glad it would be you. My death… It always should have been, should always be, you."Decades after the Promised Day, an effort to repair Tokyo's kekkai via scientific means inadvertently draws the souls of former Dragons into old karmic patterns... resulting in both consequences and unexpected opportunities to try again.





	Contempus Mundi (Scorn the World)

**Author's Note:**

> It has been… at least a decade since I've written anime/manga fic? ^^; Getting all nostalgic and re-watching _X_ plus the TB OVAs was clearly the kiss of death. At any rate, there are hundred of reincarnation fics out there, most of them much better than mine, but I thought I'd get this out of my system all the same. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read my story! If I could bother you just a bit more of comment or leave kudos, I'd be very much in your debt! 
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** unhealthy relationships and threatening behavior on par with X in general, vague futurism from someone who reads _way_ too much science-fiction, random _Chobits_ references. No political commentary intended. Slight OOC-ness due to reincarnation, but hopefully not much-- I don't know about you, but I haven't learned anything the past ~~several~~ lifetime ~~s~~. -_-

_Keep your mouth shut till you get 'em in,_  
_And only play the games you can win,_  
_Play your hand close,_  
_Like you got a glass chin,_  
_Now let's begin…_  
-RJD2, "Games You Can Win"

"Thy way is darkness. Remember me, once, in the long and lampless night of thy life."  
-Tanith Lee, _Tamastara_

* * *

They don't pull over until the ecoCycle's fuel meter is dangerously in the red. Even then, having driven non-stop since their escape, the man is not quite satisfied with the distance they've put between themselves and their enemies. A hunter himself, he is not capable of feeling a prey's trepidation. His disquiet stems only from strategic instinct, and the dispassionate cunning which has allowed him indulge his whims unchecked by society. There's nothing for it, though. With the electric battery low, the sleek black ecoCyle will soon switch over to traditional fuel and, while the latter is more readily available in the countryside, he has no wish to squander resources in the face of an uncertain future.

The highway signs-- so many of which are faded in this part of Tottori-ken-- indicate a small village nearby, and the lonesome rambling weeds of the exit-ramp are at least encouraging. It takes another half and hour of narrow, winding forest roads before they come to the little town proper, whose rain-worn sign reads Asamori. Once, the man is forced to stop the bike, the rainy season (or more likely, many of them) having wrought its weakening hand on many of the embankments. When he finally cuts the engine, the fatal quiet of the late afternoon forest is almost a sound in and of itself. For a few moments, he and his companion gaze upon their obstacle while the sun shines myriad shades of yellow and green through September's just-turning leaves. 

The toppled tree could easily prove impassible, but fortune has favored them, leaving only several large branches lying in the road. The boy, whose only name is Subaru, silently dismounts the bike with his elder and wordlessly assists with the clearance. Even so, the man does most of the work, making use of his developing powers only when physical force proves impractical. The boy has never been outside the Ueno facility before, carefully clutching the backpack and its precious contents more as a life-preserver than as something he has been tasked with guarding. Though he does glance about his new surroundings in half-nervous curiosity, that furtive green gaze rests primarily on the his recent abductor. The man finds this regard, especially when favored over the delights of a wide new world, quite gratifying.

Asamori appears to be abandoned. The man-- who might be called 'Seishirou' should he have anyone intimate enough to presume something other than 'Kaerizaki-sensei'-- still takes care to reconnoiter, leaving his companion by the cycle with a terse command not to move. Now well into the latter half of the 21st Century, Japan's formerly dwindling population is in recovery, but the process is slow. This little outpost is likely one of the many ghost-towns that dot rural areas, especially true in _inaka_ like Tottori-ken. The unswept streets and crumbling edifices carry a thick layer of desertion as well as grime, but one cannot automatically rule out stubborn elders or _henkyou no juumin_. Concentrating rather more than he'd like, Seishirou sends out tendrils of inborn _onmyoujutsu_ in search of that particular cloying _ki_ of humanity amidst the more harmonious objects of the land itself. His proficiency is still greatly outstripped by raw potential, and his impatience resides so deeply within that he is only half-aware of it himself. His only guide in these matters is greatly weakened, its salvaged remnants half-dreaming in a sealed bio-tube. This is the man's other theft-- the _primary_ theft-- from the secret government facility under Ueno Park, tucked carefully in the backpack of which Subaru has charge. Despite the boy's wary, half-repulsed sympathy with the thing, his abductor has no doubt he will guard it assiduously.

 

When Seishirou returns to the meager alleyway between houses, he can see that Subaru has taken his instructions very literally. His companion hasn't moved an inch, body devoid of unconscious restlessness in a way most teenagers could never accomplish. 

"It would seem there's no one here to welcome us," Seishirou says, with deceptive lightness and a sardonic little smile. "Such fortunate misfortune." Now the boy-- at sixteen, so slight and guileless as to appear far younger, and sometimes be mistaken for a girl-- does shift from foot to foot. Not nervously, but like a divining rod seeking the nodus of spiritual vibration. 

"Ne, Seishirou-san…" Along with the unfailing appellation, the boy is predictably polite, worrying already bruise-red lips between his teeth. 

"What?" the tall man asks, with more terseness than he'd prefer to show. He's not concerned about the other's feelings, but exhaustion is no excuse for exposing even the slightest tell. 

" _Nan demo arimasen_ ," Subaru mutters, lost look at odds with the baggy jeans and dark hoodie Seishirou pilfered for him. His black hair, rather longer than most boys his age would wear, is fetchingly unkempt as it obscures his downcast face, but it does not prevent him from seeing and responding when Seishirou motions for him. Wheeling the cycle carefully into what must have been a chicken coup, the older man scans for an unexposed building. A good vantage point is also preferable, but he's most concerned about the sort of tiny anomalies that _Keisatsu no_ Persocom's are so adept at detecting. Little incongruities that most humans would miss, though any actual military personnel will also prove formidable. Just how obvious the _Yoyaku No Hi_ project will be about retrieving its stolen property remains to be seen. That they will come-- and with great force-- is inevitable, but the circuitous route through Saitama and Gunma-ken should at least buy some time.  
After careful consideration of these variables, he decides on a dwelling some ways away. Grasping one of those too-slender arms, he leads his quiet companion inside. 

 

The house is dank within, smelling of mold and too many rainy seasons, predictably festooned with cobwebs. The windows are intact, however, and the interior he can see from the _genkan_ is mostly free of those ravages perpetrated by wildlife. Subaru, in one of his incongruously formal moments, actually starts to remove his shoes-- though a repressive look from Seishirou stops him cold. For someone who has spent the vast majority of his life confined to a few rooms in a secret government laboratory, Subaru has some very definite-- and sometimes old-fashioned-- ideas about behavior in polite society. This _knowing_ aspect of the boy, the sense of habits and attitudes ingrained over a lifetime he could not possibly have lived, irritates Seishirou to a degree that must go largely unrecognized. Frustrating, mystifying; second only to the odd sadness which seems to weigh on that slender back, and the silent rapport he's exhibited towards the older man since the day they met. Some of Seishirou's co-workers were foolish enough to call it affection, and perhaps the original affinity has grown to such from the boy's perspective. To Seishirou, a coaxing hand produces results more favorable than that of the whip, and he has never given anyone on the project room to imagine otherwise. Even the 'subject's' naiveté-- unmarred in almost all other aspects-- no longer quite extends to the motives of his so-called friend.

Yet here they are, and Subaru came willingly enough, not once questioning his abductor even when the truth of the situation became abundantly obvious. His terror over the shattered, antiseptic certainty of his life was equaled only by the horror in his eyes as Seishirou killed many of the people they'd worked with for years, yet he made no sound and gave no warning sign. There's a dazed wildness about him now, the roaring of rapids trapped beneath placid ice, which betrays his disbelief. Too much input, too sudden a change, and the little escapee is shivering as much from shock as from cold.

 

The chill in the air is, despite all that, quite real. While Seishirou is not so foolish as to hope for heat or light a fire himself, the house at least provides shelter from the wind and intermittent autumn rain. Even his fine, heavy trench coat was no match for hours on the open EcoCyle. The clothes Subaru wears are atypical remnants of the older man's high school days, and he is shod only in the ubiquitous thin slippers of the laboratory. Seishirou hadn't dared to purchase anything for this venture, knowing any deviation from his routine might draw suspicion from the Director or the project's shadowy sponsors. He is of a generation that takes intense but unfocused surveillance as a matter of course (doubly so, having chosen his particular profession). Since he has always sensed himself to be Other, he mastered much of the appearance of propriety even before the Tree taught him the delights of _maboroshi_. One cannot eat or sufficiently cloth oneself in illusion, however. As a result, he is both over and under prepared, his outlook sanguine in the manner of a predator. Day follows night, prey is built to flee as those they nourish are built to give chase; blood, and other necessarily things, will reveal their availability in time-- which is also a resource.

Besides, Seishirou considers with humor as black as his own soul, his reputation at the Ueno facility precedes him. He is Kaerizaki-sensei of flawless autopsies, known for pitilessly dressing down those underlings who cannot perform to his expectation and a tendency to actually volunteer for lab animal disposal. He is, quite simply, the last person anyone would suspect of rescuing the latest subject slated for euthanasia. Even with irrefutable evidence, his colleagues will have a hard time ascribing this theft to him. Seishirou almost doesn't believe it himself. Without the motion of the cycle or the thrum of the engine in his being, the stark reality with which he always views the world has become even more unforgiving. 

 

While there is no change in the expression on his face, the older man's mood darkens like a storm-- the kind spurred to prodigious strength by traveling pollutants. Subaru, sensitive to such fluctuations no matter how impassive his senior's veneer, wisely hangs back. Seishirou can hear the boy gingerly picking his way through the living room, even as the abductor stalks off to prowl the house.

There isn't much to see. Yellow stains and mildew make their way in dripping river channels down from the damaged ceiling, though there's no water actively leaking at the moment. In the kitchen, the few remaining appliances are antiquated, with wires chewed and holes clawed into cupboards by various natural vandals, many of whom have left their tracks smeared in mud across the already dust-caked floor. All but the largest items of furniture have been removed, and a few vaguely darker patches on the walls betray the pictures which once hung there, before the sun set to bleaching every abandoned centimeter it could reach. All cleared away, no doubt, by surviving relatives descending on the home of some stubborn elder who-- until conquered by death or dementia-- refused to leave all they'd known. Seishirou doesn't hold out much hope of finding anything useful, but thoroughness and practicality prompt him to check. 

The dismal air, so heavy it seems to have congealed in corners and amidst shadows, hardly dissipates when he pulls open the sliding glass door to the backyard. The tiny space, once a garden, is overgrown with creeper, knot wood, and other weeds so glutted on their freedom they look almost alien. A few vegetables seem to be persevering, poking out half-helplessly in those spaces not already occupied by their bothersome cousins, while the remnants of several wire clotheslines creek irksomely in the chill breeze. It's not much worth bothering over, save for the fruit tree clearly visible over the neighbor's wall. A branch, thick but so laden as to have bent almost to eye-level, extends over the barrier. Seishirou crosses to it in four long strides, stepping through the debris of season after season's worth of fallen harvest. The _aonashi_ is still ripe, though its days are numbered, and the yellow-green orbs are pleasantly hefty in the older man's palm. He frowns faintly in spite of the good fortune, and picks several to stick in the voluminous pockets of his coat.

It's a far cry from the sophisticated fare which usually marks Seishirou's evenings; a fact needling into his skull with the same irregular static of the creaking metal clothes racks. On any other night, he'd be in one of dozens of restaurants in Shinjuku whose glittering facades are outdone only by the talents of their chefs. He'd be spending his ridiculous clandestine salary on expensive Italian, Mediterranean, or an elaborate traditional meal before heading off to satisfy his sweet tooth with one or more specialty desserts. His gourmand's palette considers taste one of the more interesting senses to be indulged, though the contents of his elegantly spartan apartment would betray an eye for beauty as well.

There's no sorrow in him for these lost things, pretty diversions that they were. No additional heaviness in his tread or smoldering slam of the door as he slides it closed. This apathy, his defining characteristic where others might value a feeling heart, now has in it also an edge of relief. He ignores this addition almost as willfully as he does the nagging sense of _deja vu_ in the back of his mind-- the sense that something has been left undone, or shall shortly come to unexpected culmination. It's the deviation that unsettles him. Such unanticipated behavior-- from both himself and others-- is an affront to his sensibilities. The orderly clockwork of his being, which he tends with all the meticulous patience of a mystic predicting the movements of the stars. _Shikata ga nai._ Nothing can be done about it. This too is in his nature, and now the game is afoot. Certainly, to take long odds such as these, one might expect an exponentially more impressive prize

_('So today, I'll let you go…')_

but isn't the power of the _sakurazakamori_ \-- which none since the extinction of its guardian clan has harnessed-- just that?

_('Why didn't I see it, from the start of all of this?')_

Well, at least the affair will be amusing. 

 

Re-entering the living-room on silent feet, Seishirou takes a moment to gaze on the stakes of this bet, since Subaru has so kindly removed the contraband from its hiding place in the backpack. Sheets from the boy's own hospital bed, haphazardly appropriated to cushion what is at once a durable and delicate piece of technology, lie crumpled between the sagging couch and over-sized coffee table. The latter appears to an unfortunate hold-over of the 2030's 'nature' fad. As though constructing an altar, Subaru moves forward a little on his knees, setting the duraglass cylinder gently on the great stone slab. He even seems to have fished up a stained scarf and chipped figurine from the debris-- mundanities his strange upbringing has rendered exotic. The fading sun casts both the boy and the few remaining props of domesticity in shades of amber and citrine, as if for some muddled modern take on a _Noh_ play. Subaru is a creature suited to such things; gestures of heavy symbolism, the ordinary weighed down by history until emotion passes from person into the act itself. 

The read-outs at the cylinder's base are all green, though Seishirou's eyesight provides no more detail than this. Always, he sees half the world in a veil of blurred obscurity, all smudged charcoal-- right eye too weak and temperamental even for today's medical advances. He has no need for the environmental displays at any rate. All along his nerve-endings are the twisting, ghostly sensations of the _Other_. 

 

Floating in the clear nutrient-rich solution, is the last remaining shard of _onmyoujutsu_ which for thousands of years presented itself as a _sakura_ tree. Now it is little more than a soft cutting, a single branch like the angular scrawl of a child's first kanji-- the half-sleeping pivot of a being so voracious and strange it exists in more than one world simultaneously. He has seen it as it should-- or wishes-- to be; a titan of old-growth in eternal bloom, thick roots like gnarled fists.

Sitting _seiza_ -style before it, Subaru bows his head to mouth a silent chant, though his emerald eyes remain open in the sort of gaze a sage-prince might turn on the palace's 'pet' tiger. Seishirou has never understood the relationship between Subaru and the Tree, though that in and of itself is hardly noteworthy. The _Yoyaku No Hi_ Project dedicated almost a decade to unraveling the secrets of both the Sakura and the boy they had confirmed as its Chosen, with only sporadic data and barely-educated assumptions to show for it. The smirk that graces the older man's lips at this thought is faint but genuine. Though logic and the scientific method-- avowed weapons of any physician such as he-- had little to do with it, Seishirou understood the Tree itself almost from the first. By now, he doubts any mortal could grasp the entire truth behind those blood-tinged blossoms and remain sane. That, and the failure of the project, make his comprehension and satisfaction all the more profound. Having no particular spiritual background himself, Seishirou is content to view the Sakura primarily as an oblique and opportunistic organism. That _onmyoudo_ exists in the real and empirical world is not something he would have credited before encountering Subaru and the Tree with which the boy is so inexplicably --and reluctantly-- entwined, but it actually takes little adjustment in his cosmology to accept it. All concepts must have their practical proof and, achieving such, become absolute reality. Has he not exercised such _onmyoujustu_ himself with profound and… _interesting_ results? 

Paused in the doorway, trench coat pockets full of _aonashi_ , Seshirou does feel a prickle of irritation at Subaru's continued focus on the biotube. The boy knows he's here-- he always senses Seishirou's presence, no matter how quietly the other man moves. It has been only recently, as the physician's powers expanded to casting _maboroshi_ , that any successful stealth has been achieved. Even then, the results are obnoxiously irregular. It feels like a grating upset of the status quo though, of course, no such prior time exists.  
A few disjointed dreams, odd impressions, and psychological debris will never convince Seishirou otherwise.

 

( _'Do you like the sakura?'_ )

As if sensing this thought, Subaru looks up. Those mismatched green eyes, one vibrant emerald and the other a pale celadon, are inquisitive and unguarded. At once known and infinitely inscrutable. In the deepening gold light of sunset, the right one takes on a deceptively amber cast.

( _It cannot be borne, someone else's scar on my prey…_ )

" _Daijoubu desu_ ," Subaru says quietly, one finger briefly trailing along the duraglass tube. Thankfully, he's still quite unable to interpret most of Seishirou's expressions (to say nothing of his words)-- a fact which should not engender such faint prickles of relief. "The Sakura is satisfied." A faint frown mars those delicate features, for the liquid in which the cutting floats is not entirely translucent. What was once, when their flight began, a definite vermillion cast has now dwindled to a faint reddish-pink tinge. It _has_ been feeding-- Seishirou saw to that, being of the opinion that his intended theft would inevitably involve the fatalities of certain coworkers, and that resources should always be maximized. After a beat Subaru adds, almost unwillingly, "It's glad to be with you."

Seishirou, never one to pass on such a wide opening for a dig, smiles inwardly. "And you, Subaru-kun?" he asks coyly, but also with a searching tone many would mistake for genuine. "Are you glad to be with me as well?"

 

Predictably, the boy blushes, gaze darting down to the floor. A moment later, and he again meets Seishirou's eyes with a steady regard of his own. Not defiant, or even practiced, but rather experienced… somehow at once immutable and so very worn. It's always a toss-up as to which Subaru he'll get-- the utterly unvarnished innocent, or the weary creature whose emotional flesh is left vulnerable despite layers of obvious scarring. The other man never shows any real reaction to either, save to occasionally comment or tease. In this case, he rakes the boy up and down with his own amber eyes. Subaru always trembles fetchingly under such weighted intent, as though shivering beneath palpable touch. A satisfied, feline smile blooms on Seishirou's lips-- all the more sensuous for his bolstered certainty. Stalking towards the pitifully sagging couch, he sprawls there with careless elegance. When Subaru turns to track his movement, he idly tosses an _aonashi_ into the boy's lap. It's not until he begins to take lazy bites from his own that Subaru murmurs _'itadakimasu'_ and begins to eat in a careful copy of his captor. As well he might, Seishirou considers, having been exposed only to tasteless lab gruel since the approximate age of five. A brilliant, unguarded smile blooms on that face as soon as Subaru processes the taste and texture of this new meal. 

"You didn't answer me, Subaru-kun," he chides, nudging his companion with a heavy but stylish boot. "You're not normally so rude." It occurs to him that their current uneven setting is rather gratifying-- himself on the sofa, Subaru kneeling on the floor and eating the food Seishirou has given him. Abstractly, he wonders if he might somehow coax the boy closer, have one of those warm, blushing cheeks pressed against his own knee. By now, the sentiment 'You're so cute, Subaru-kun' does not need to be spoken. Each syllable is implicit in the way he smiles at his companion, in the very angles and attitude of his body. Subaru colors again, despite the fact he probably doesn't have the imagination to guess the older man's exact mental conjurations. 

"I--" A stammer, then the release of a particularly pitched sigh-- the kind that betrays the boy's frustration with himself. 

For a man who does not like to be kept waiting, Seishirou has the patience of the moon as it toys with the sea. His young captive is the tide, though far lovlier-- drawn in, fleeing, only to edge back ( _always_ ) again.

 

"I knew the project had been terminated," Subaru says quietly. The scientist spares an inward smirk for his colleagues, simpletons who assumed the powerful _onmyouji_ they'd cultivated would not sense their ultimate intent. The _Yoyaku No Hi_ 's 'Subject A' might be distressingly naive, but there's no denying he has prodigious talent, and he's far from intellectually challenged. "The Sakura was depending on you, and I knew it would be safe." He shifts restlessly, as if this… obligation he feels is ultimately incongruous and uncomfortable. "When you came to my room…"

'Your cell,' Seishirou thinks, with jaded factuality. His degrees in anatomy and psychology have made him familiar with anny number of textbook responses to captivity and propaganda, but he still cannot avoid the sense that Subaru's selflessness is somehow innate. 

_('Aren't the people under the sakura suffering…?')_

The slim creature is grateful when handed scraps. A minute but dire frown flashes across Seishirou's countenance. While that is-- he assumes (or insists) to himself-- the very reason Subaru is so attached to him, the attitude as always struck him as alien and… dangerous. Those green eyes, usually irresistibly drawn to the older man, miss this little flicker. The young _onmyouji_ 's gaze is turned inward, the expression of his fore-bearers bent over a scrying bowl. It is as if there lies within the already strange and sheltered boy some mirrored, internal compass-- a half rueful, sorrow-laden oracle that still cannot dispel his innocence.  
Seishirou would very much like to see if this mechanism, which he pictures cradled in that bird's cage chest, is as delicate and deliciously breakable as he thinks it is. 

Having come to some sort of conclusion, Subaru looks up once more. "I thought they had sent you. That you'd come to kill me. I was glad it would be you."

The little expulsion of breath knocked from Seishirou's chest is, at least, silent. Whatever internal voice the boy consults, it doesn't help that it seems to know or sense things of which-- to Seishirou's eternal irritation-- the older man is unaware. 

 

Light is fleeing the abandoned village with the unhurried nature of all cosmic practicalities, but the furnace of sunset still casts enough glow for Seishirou's good eye to see with. Subaru sits in the square of illumination from the window, as though contained safely within some _kekkai_. He seems, for a moment, to have been carved from ivory-- what was once living matter now beautifully warped into some other, new thing. 

Almost too softly, the boy finishes, "My death… It always should have been, should always _be_ , you."

( _'He told me your Wish is different from what I think it is…'_

_'Even if you forgot my death at your hand… at least, in my final moment…')_

Something clenches within Seishirou then, not in his heart but in the void behind it. The feeling is most curious and, despite the older man's interest in indulging new sensations, most unwelcome in its potency and death. His fingers flex once, agitated, recalling the warmth of muscle and blood which marks the Tree's preferred method of killing. It is less the impulse to violence than it is a distraction from the ghost of other, far more delicate fingers reaching unwittingly into his own chest.

 

"Subaru-kun has rather dramatic sensibilities," Seishirou says, paying no mind to his own tendency towards operatic timing. Ostentatiously, he loudly bites and chews the _aonashi_. "Romantic, almost."

And if he says this as though commenting on some high school essay? Well, the boy deserves it, spouting such nonsense in that prosaic tone. 'The sky is blue, Seishirou-san. Water is wet. And I've always expected, Seishirou-san, that you would be my murderer.' It chafes, and that's the sort of irritation he has no problem showing. He does not-- as either Seishirou or 'Kaerizaki-sensei'-- do what _anyone_ expects of him.

"No one is killing anyone," he continues smoothly, sitting forward to rest his elbows on his knees. What he really wants is a cigarette, but he has no intention of rooting around in his pockets just now. All the same, the blatant falsehood is grounding-- as is Subaru's little flinch. Satisfied the Tree may be, but both its protectors know that won't last long. While he may not understand the young _onmyouji_ 's sporadic communion with the Sakura, Seishirou has come enough into his own power to anticipate its needs. _Their_ contract is binding and reciprocal, the only kind which can exist between two predators. Perhaps his companion should watch Seishirou perform his function first hand, so that he might better understand the dynamics of the odd, triangular relationship the Sakura seems to have chosen. Experience is the best teacher, after all, and the thought is… invigorating. 

Poor, unsuspecting Subaru is staring at him with wide verdant eyes. Not with hope, but with the stung child's wish to believe in hope, despite knowing better. Yet the look is still all too steady and, while the boy says nothing, those pale lips exhale a long, musing breath. As if he has parsed the truth from the lie and is merely too polite to say so. Never the less, his eyes say, 'Your lie is wrapped in another lie…' 

 

The older man's hands do not act without his knowledge-- instead, they enforce his will the moment it takes shape. Palms stained with unseen blood, fingers which have wrung out life now reach out to curl around that warm, white throat. The hold is not harsh, for all its potential strength, and his thumbs draw slow circles along the youth's laryngeal prominence. His Subaru-kun doesn't have to shave quite yet, but it will be soon. Seishirou himself barely remembers the pangs of hormones-- if, indeed, he experienced them at all-- but he is well-acquainted with his own appetites. Including those of the flesh. He is not so foolish as to call these a man's drives; women, though they often express such things differently, are subject to the same hungers themselves. Still, his more carnal appreciation of Subaru is a thing of fairly recent flowering. An aesthetically breath-taking object has now become a beautiful _embodied_ thing, gilding avarice and fascination with more… intimate concepts of possession. 

Holding perfectly still in Seishirou's grasp, Subaru turns an intense crimson-- more the betrayal of emotion beneath his pallid skin than pressure or lack of air. If Seishirou cannot fully comprehend these impulses (and refusal to admit such does not change facts), then the boy is completely unequipped to even approach them. Still, like the gemstone they evoke, there is an unexpected hardness 

 

_(not so unexpected; merely a bit of growing-up which should not, by all rights, have happened yet._

_'You were the one who changed me, made me into the man I am now.'_

_And is that not a caress within his own numbed being, those words? To have outstripped _her_ in influence, to have melted glass shards into this entrancing yet half-familiar new shape? An honest man would be able to acknowledge such feelings before mortality forced his hand-- but an honest man would not have such desires to begin with.)_

 

to those eyes, emerald right down to the bottom. The quickened respiration and pounding of carotid are tangible things to Seishirou; no effort is made to escape his hold, though Subaru's hands fist fretfully in the fabric of his sweatshirt. All throughout, the look which has evoked such aggression from the captor continues to say;  
'Your lie is wrapped in another lie, and then in another lie still. Others will die, and I shall be sorry… but you will not kill me.'

 

All too accurate, and doubly unwanted. Seishirou has risked a great deal to protect the Sakura and, by extension, Subaru. Any damage done to either at this point would be highly counter-productive. Therefore, he allows the intensity to drain from his expression; a transition to smiling camaraderie so complete that even the boy-- well accustomed to these swift changes in mood-- blinks in disbelief. 

Lifting one hand to caress Subaru's cheek, he leans forward further to whisper, "Subaru-kun's skin is even warmer when he blushes. Who needs a fire?"

Then Seishirou pulls back, laughing and returning to his indolent sprawl, even as his companion shakes his head in vehement denial and sputters something along the lines of 'strange and embarrassing'. Now the older man does fish in his pockets, retrieving both another piece of fruit and the slim little e-cigarette he's so fond of. He puts a little spin on the orb this time, but Subaru still manages to catch it mid-air. There are more profuse thanks, of course, which Seishirou waves away with a languid hand. The second _aonashi_ is consumed with more enthusiasm, and a small but unabashed smile of child-like pleasure. It is not necessarily aimed at the older man, but it belongs to him anyway, for they have passed out of the gray fluorescent world of the Ueno Facility and into a land which-- for Subaru-- now holds endless surprises and delights. The boy's debt pleases him, if only by virtue of banishing that knowing ghost and placing them both back on familiar, properly uneven ground. 

 

They eat the rest in silence, while the dying gasp of the sun's orange blush throws tenebrous shadows on the stained walls. The eye seeks order in such madness, familiar shapes where there is naught but chaos. No hungry trees, harsh-winged hawks, or figures turned away on their own strange errands. Like the outmoded ink-blot test, there may be basic commonalities, but Seishirou is certain he and Subaru have very different perceptions.

And if they both see-- or avoid seeing-- the pendulous ruins of a bridge? Then each keeps silent for his own reasons, willfully blocking out these echoes of the unremembered past.

 

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm about halfway through the next chapter… I do hope to keep this as a short-ish mood piece. (This is also the kiss of death. ^_~)
> 
> Notes:  
> [+] _kaerizaki_ \- 're-flowering'. I make terrible puns, and should be soundly beaten for it.  
> [+] _henkyou no juumin_ \- 'frontiers men'.  
> [+] While Asamori is completely fictitious, Tottori-ken is definitely one of the best examples of beautiful Japanese countryside. It's also one of the least populated prefectures, which is why I picked on it for purposes of half-baked futurism. ^^''  
> [+] _inaka_ \- countryside  
> [+] _keisatsu_ \- police.  
> [+] _Yoyaku No Hi_ \- 'Promised Day'.  
> [+] _seiza_ \- to sit on one's heels.  
> [+] _aonashi_ \- Japanese green pears, which are round and look rather like green apples.


End file.
